After the viewing of The Scenesters (which was one of the funniest and most original comedies I’ve seen in ages—see the review here), a fellow Village Elder and I continued our journey around the New Orleans Film Festival (which I’ll refer to as NOFF, for brevity reasons). We came across several different kinds of people: from young to old and from sober to various levels of high, everyone was represented. We met film makers, film critics, film fans, and those just trying something new. There were those hoping their new films will do well, those hoping to catch a glimpse of a celebrity, and those pretentious hipsters who will watch a film ONLY if it meets both criteria of (1) being independently made and (2) is or has been in a film festival (you know who you are).

At the end of the day, we had the chance to sit down for some drinks with three of the stars of The Scenesters: Todd Berger, Blaise Miller, and Jeff Grace. I must admit, these guys are the exact opposite of the pretentious hipsters in their film. They were, all three, some of the most down-to-earth, and genuinely funny people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. As we had a few drinks that night, each shared at least one anecdote about his experience in the film business, a few of which I thought you, the loyal Villagers, may enjoy.

"The Vacationeers" clockwise from left: Jeff Grace, Todd Berger, Blaise Miller, Kevin Brennan

Todd Berger, the writer/director of The Scenesters, who also played “Wallace Cotten”, the director within the film, is a New Orleans native who fled to the land of Hollywood some seven years ago to be a screenwriter. During his “adventures” he has been a member of various comedy groups, including his current group, The Vacationeers, which consists of himself, Miller, Grace, and the fourth member, Kevin Brennan, who also starred in The Scenesters, but who couldn’t make it to NOFF. (I’m sure he’s cool, but I didn’t get to meet him. Sorry, Kevin.)

One of the more interesting anecdotes we got from Berger was about the time setting of the film. The Scenesters is set in 2002. Berger told us that originally, he set the film in 2002 because this still was the era of the “Hipster” or “Scenester”, the type of young, urban-middle-class adults interested in only non-mainstream entertainment and fashion. He also set the film in 2002 so that it may seem like the recovered footage actually did happen. However, after later casting both John Landis and Sherilyn Fenn in small roles, he knew that audiences would know that the footage wasn’t real, but the year 2002 was already locked in, therefore some of the bands and music are actually post-2002. Berger did assure us, though, that all of the costumes and cell phones were circa 2002.

Blaise Miller, the star of The Scenesters and member of The Vacationeers comedy group, gave us the pretty interesting story of how he came to be an actor. While in college, having no interest in acting whatsoever, Miller was a soccer player. During a match, he collided with another player and, as a result, broke his jaw in several places, which required that it be wired shut for two months. Then, after two months of not being able to talk or eat solid food, Miller’s grades had begun to fall so he decided to take an acting class in which he thought he could hopefully get an easy ‘A’ as well as let out two months worth of talking all at once. Miller said that from that class on, he loved acting and became determined that’s what he would do.

The third member of The Vacationeers we met that evening was Jeff Grace, the producer of The Scenesters who also played “Roger Graham”, the producer within the film. Grace is a stand-up comedian in L.A. who told us about various experiences he’s had in the business. The story that stuck with me was how he was asked to be a writer for The Henry Rollins Show on IFC. For the show he was told to come up with political jokes, but every time he tried to diversify the subject matter, Rollins would say, “Let’s do some more Bush Jokes!” As if there was no one else in the political world to make fun, who wouldn’t be such an obvious target.

Well, anyway, I’ve rambled on a bit now, and I hope this stuff was as interesting to the readers as it was to us who were there, and hopefully not a bunch of those “I guess you had to be there” stories. I would just like to say again how much of a pleasure it was to get the chance to hang out with these guys, especially after seeing their movie. If you get the chance be sure to “Save a Hipster and Watch The Scenesters.” You will not be disappointed. Also, you can see one of the shorts by The Vacationeers over at the Village Square, and don’t forget to check out The Vacationeers YouTube page and become of fan of both The Scenesters and The Vacationeers on Facebook.

Todd Berger and The Vacationeers

I’m including the following transcript from the Q & A session directly following the screening of the Scenesters. The questions are asked by the host of the screening as well as various members of the audience and answered by Todd Berger. I found it to be some pretty interesting and funny stuff about the making of the movie. Enjoy.

Q: I have the director here, Todd Berger.

TB: Thank you very much. This is our star, Blaise Miller. You saw him in the film. And this is Jeff Grace, the producer of the movie, who also played a producer in the movie. And I played the director and I directed the movie, which was very awkward sometimes. I would yell, “Cut!” and they would cut, and I would be like, “No. I was acting.”

Q: So, Todd, you are from New Orleans. Tell us how you made that transition from New Orleans to L.A.

TB: Yeah. I was born and raised here. I used to make movies in high school with a crew of people who are here today. We would make feature-length films over our summers, when most people were socializing. I loved film. Then I went to the University of Texas and studied film there, and then I got a literary agent right out of school from a script that I wrote in class. Which, that happens to everyone. (laughter) And then I moved out to L.A. I’ve lived there for about seven years and done my thing.

Q: Speaking of Texas, I hear you are also in the Austin Film Festival. Tell us about that.

TB: Well, Austin is a city, which was founded in 18… (laughter) Yeah, we just started our festival run. We played in Canada last week and now we’re playing here (New Orleans). My family is here as well and I wouldn’t let them see the movie until it was on a big screen, and so they thought they would never see it, and then they got to see it today. And then we’re playing Austin next week, and then Hollywood after that, and then who knows…the world is our oyster.

Q: Was there a budget?

TB: Was there a budget? Oh, WHAT WAS the budget? Well, there are a lot of ways to answer that question. I usually say that it was more than the Blair Witch Project and less than Titanic. But to give you an actual answer, it was way under a million dollars, and there was a big difference in what our actual budget was and what we actually spent, because a lot of the people who worked on the film—MOST of the people who worked on the film—did not get paid. What we did was, if we were gonna pay you, say $7,000 to do craft services, instead you got a $7,000 investment in the film as a producer. So, if our movie makes money someday, then they make money, and if not, well, whatever. (laughter) So, pretty much everyone you saw in the credits worked deferred. We had to pay some people, and we went legit with the Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, and Directors Guild, and shooting in L.A. can be quite expensive just to shoot in a location, like if you want to shoot in a liquor store, you have to get permits, and policemen to be there. So that gets expensive. But we did it pretty cheap, just because everyone was very willing to help out and we called in a lot of favors. But I’ll never tell you what we actually spent.

Q: How long did it take?

TB: The shoot was 17 days. It was supposed to be 19, but I’m really good. (laughter) We shot six-day weeks, like 12 hours a day. We shot all of the courtroom stuff in like four hours. Sherilyn Fenn, we knew we had one roll in the movie that was throughout the entire movie, but we only needed the person for about two hours, so it was really easy to call her and be like, “Hey, do you wanna come for like two hours?” She was like, “Sure.” So it worked out well.

Q: How do you guys know each other?

TB: We’re in a comedy group together, obviously, called the Vacationeers. The guy who plays the cop with the soul patch is the fourth member. He’s not here today, he’s at a wedding. I went to school with him, and then he went to Chicago to do Second City with these guys—Second City comedy—and then they all moved to L.A. and I had already been in L.A. and then our powers combined and here we are. And we used to do live improv shows at a restaurant in Los Angeles which is now a Korean BBQ, so we can’t do live improv shows there anymore. (laughter) But we’ll do some improv for you guys right now. I need a location and… (laughter)…sorry. Not a lot of improv fans here.

Q: This was a very original idea. Could you tell us the genesis of the idea? How you came up with this idea?

TB: I’ve always loved watching those C.S.I. shows, and my brother, who is here, was telling me a story about how when his house was broken into, the C.S.I. guys who were there were talking about the Saints game and sandwiches, and he was like, “Are you gonna dust for prints?” and they were like, “Ha HA HA. Unless they touched your plate-glass window, come on.” And it’s a job. It’s what these people do for a living and they don’t really care. It’s not William Petersen. So I’ve always wanted to do this very “The Office set at a crime scene” sort of thing, and then we needed to shoot a movie for very cheap, so I needed an idea that would make sense that we’re shooting on handheld HD cameras, that is not supposed to look beautiful, so I racked my brain as to what is something Cloverfield or Blair Witch Project, one of these movies that is found footage, so I thought, “crime scene videography”. They actually send these guys to crime scenes to shoot these things, so let’s do a whole movie of found footage. And then crime scene cleanup is an actual job. If someone is murdered in your house, the cops don’t clean it up, you have to call someone or do it yourself. Blaise and I actually went to an actual crime scene cleanup place in L.A. and the people there were like, “Hey bro, we had a double homicide last night. It was CRAZY!” (laughter) They were showing us pictures, and it was weird. And so that kind of inspired both the characters and the way to tell the story so that it’s super-cheap to do. The way we only shot in 17 days was that we would just shoot it like a documentary. We would do the scene and we would have the camera operator just shoot it. We would do each scene two or three times, get close ups on this one and wides on this one. So we didn’t really have to storyboard it. The black and white movie within the movie took five times longer than everything else because we actually had to storyboard it and light it. So, that’s why we were able to do it so fast.

Q: I have a follow up question.

TB: Sure. I love follow up questions.

Q: It sounds like you started out trying to make a send-up of the crime scene shows, but the movie is more a send-up of filmmakers.

TB: Living in Los Angeles and I, sometimes being an out-of-work filmmaker myself, I’ve always thought it would be interesting to do a story about an artist who had to get a job doing something like shooting birthday videos or weddings or something and how he would put himself in that. And after being in the business for seven years and becoming disillusioned myself, about, you know, writing scripts that would be in development for years and they would have to attach Ryan Gosling to it and then he would back out, I was like, “I just want to go make a movie and make some money.” So that’s what we did. So my own anger at the business came out a little bit.

Q: What’s next? Are you guys gonna work together or…

TB: Yeah. Well we all do our own things. I write and direct other things. Jeff is a stand-up comic. Blaise is an actor. He was in a commercial that was nominated for an Emmy. So HE was nominated for an Emmy. And he’s also a writer. So we all do our own things. Right now, we’re actually pitching a TV show because I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the economy is terrible, so nobody is making movies, but people still watch TV. So we have a TV idea that hopefully will go somewhere. And if not, I have another idea I’m working on, but we’ll see how this one does first, to see if we have a $15,000 budget or a $15,000,000 budget. We’ll see.